Maker Talk: Tour of the Advanced Prototyping Center at the La Kretz Innovation Campus

[Music] do [Music] hello everyone and welcome to today's maker talk my name is dianna levo posner and i am the principal librarian associate director for the exploration and creativity department of los angeles public library and today i am joined by my colleague b ha the lead librarian for our octavia lab at the central library well you might be asking you what is a maker talk our maker programs feature makers from los angeles and beyond a maker can be a grandma who loves to knit and crochet a maker can be your neighbor who brews beer makes wine and cheese and creates beautiful handmade jewelry a maker can be a barbecue pit master a robotist a medalist a glassblower origami expert gardener baker toy maker and echo fashion designer makers are inventors but they don't just invent they innovate hack and repurpose existing or obsolete technologies equipment and knowledge and take what we already know and give it a new use so if you are anyone who if you or anyone you know are makers please email us at ec dept at lapl.org we would love to feature you as our next maker now let me bring on v ha so she can introduce today's makers hello everybody hello diane thank you so much for allowing us this opportunity we're very excited to be showcasing the los angeles queen tech incubators advanced prototyping center a little bit about the october lab first we are the first maker space at the los angeles public library we're located at the central library and people are are able to use the space for free with us with their own library card i don't have a library card on my hand right now but imagine library cards and with it you allow um to 3d print you can post a print there's graphic design software there is a laser cutter there's a little cnc mill all sorts of stuff a little bit about how the octavia lab during this past year was working with the scientists cleantech incubators advanced prototyping center at lacey apc and together we were actually able to create a ppe for frontline medical workers so in that relationship we became very very close with his team and it is with great honor that i introduced nick albert with the advanced prototyping center hey everyone how are you doing today hi v great to be here we're not talking to you every day i have to i know i know we we spent a lot of time working hard figuring out the right plan of attack to um to make face shields and get them to hospitals that needed them and it was really neat to develop a coalition of makers and of innovators and manufacturers just to see the the city come together and that's that's really what the point is here at uh lacrosse innovation this town just dropped out i mean uh the prototyping center to develop technologies yeah next year sounds bad so how's that no so so basically the los angeles cleantech incubator is located in the arts district and it is a joint project a little bit i thought nick will be able to explain it better than i can and their focus is on creating a workforce built they're gonna be people do this better than i can a workforce development that is inclusive it's green creating that green economy and just being this kind of incubator of like great great am i back yes you're back now thank you all right okay so uh thank you sorry for the short break uh we so here there are emerging technologies there's new technologies and startup companies being developed uh the intention was actually to support the clean tech corridor development and to enable smart manufacturing and industry 4.0 to come to la so we're doing that here we have the um lauritz is actually in the the parking lot we want to show you the campus we want to give you a little bit of a visual of uh what we're doing at the la crete's innovation campus we have in in our parking lot to to um shade our vehicles is also uh solar panels in in the parking lot that serves our own on-site micro grid and the as we are partners with the los angeles department of water and power we are working with them for new technologies to promote clean energy development and businesses in los angeles so uh you can see the front of the doors let's go on in and uh and head down to the prototyping center but what's unique about this campus is that there are startup companies here that are engaged at different levels of development and there's resources available for them and also if you look to the left there is the customer engagement lab for the department of water and power you can learn a lot about what the department is doing to be more efficient to save all the customers money and and to be more efficient with the processes so it's fantastic space to view and there and get educated about how they are seeking sustainability so let's head down to the prototyping center um in in another tour as well we can take a look at more of the campus where startup companies become campus members and they are able to have offices here and conduct meetings and we have an amphitheater for presentations so we we are very honored to actually work directly with department of water and power we share the same space the building was renovated in from an old furniture factory into what is now a a very lively area so now let's let's go into the prototyping center here and if there are any questions please please feel free to answer or add them into the chat so when you walk into the prototyping center on your left hand side here is an electronics lab so you actually see uh you know these are not animatronics these are actual people that are working in in the labs uh developing prototypes testing technology with multiple different um facets to it new you know from from the electronics and microcontrollers sensories or sensory technology and different newly developed solutions uh our i our intention is to enable the workspace and the testing capabilities uh for for startup companies so our members of our organization can come in and use labs we work together to support them in the ecosystem so this is just a glimpse at the electronics lab now it's obviously work in progress and let's go ahead and turn around to the wet lab so wet lab is chemistry lab right we have fume hoods we have deionized water we have different tools and supplies for conducting experiments what's unique about this is startup companies get to work directly alongside the utility and the utility has an as an opportunity to see and test and possibly implement new technology so um it's happening right in front of your eyes there's actually experiments going on and people working hard to advance the the way that we handle technology and emerging technologies into the utilities services so let's keep going there's no questions about the wetland let's head over to the core lab sorry i have a question yes nick so what do people do in the wet lab is it for like chemistry experiments or is it for like what was what is an example of something people someone could do in there right now what's going on great question uh we are working with one of our startup companies who's developing sensors that go into water and will test water quality so it's a much more advanced way of monitoring water in different areas so we have several reservoirs and we want to we want to be able to stay on top of any chemicals any content any kind of things that are that are going on in the water and monitor that so that's what fluidion does that's the company that's working in there now they work directly with dwp testing their systems so it helps us to stay more in control and aware of what's in our water and helping to maintain systems cool we also did recently some soil experiments so to find they were testing a company called seed box systems that works with us one of our portfolio companies they were testing uh techniques for soil remediation so cleaning soil making it more viable that's a really important thing for our ecosystem you're looking at what is uh sort of a storage room but there's low temperature freezers in here what you can see on the right hand side that is currently not uh in use but will be very soon this is a hydroponic system for uh testing different foods and teaching people about indoor horticulture so that they can grow their own food inside we we were doing this for about six months before the holidays and eating lots of greens we've got some some great um seeds that we're ready to put in there but that is a deep water culture system for uh for growing plants inside so it's one of the things that we're considering yeah is this something that you actually built in house or is this something that you bought off of oh um i actually built that from scratch and used it in my garage instead of my family for six months during the lockdowns so basically now we're trying to share the technology and and let people know that they have the ability to do this too very inexpensively let's head over to uh the welding lab in the 3d printing lab i'd love to introduce lawrence and have him talk about the 3d printing lab after we check out this one of my favorite rooms in the whole place this is where we can make a lot of sparks there's uh industrial welders in here and there's a closed loop system so that you can grind and finish metal in here and it helps you to stay safe while there's fumes and dust being created these there's a tig welding and mig welding in this space which are very popular and uh we're also um we will begin teaching classes uh in these two processes as well so that you can come in and learn how to weld with us eventually let's uh let's check out that welding room and i'd love to introduce laura it's because he this is his his uh real area of uh interest in here hi everyone um i'll try to get the camera to come to me quickly say hello hello um right hi uh so right now we are in the 3d printing room it also has industrial level sewing and a large format printer essentially your typical household printer but just five times the size and so in this room like nick was mentioning here we have 3d printers which is in my opinion at least a extremely useful tool when it comes to prototyping and developing ideas as well as it has its um perks when it comes to being an efficient and green technology for prototyping as well so in this room we have four different 3d printers this would be our newest addition the modics the nice thing about this is the build size you can actually print a medium-sized dog in here with it has a two foot by two feet by four foot volume so you can really make some large parts in there then we have three other 3d printers over here industrial level 3d printers and high level um hobbyist 3d printers as well so that way you can be creative with the materials that you use what kind of 3d printers are they and what materials do you use great question the two printers that are mostly directly in front of me are well all the printers in here are fdm printers which is fused deposition modeling uh if you're not familiar with that form of 3d printing you could imagine squeezing a tube of toothpaste out and creating that line of toothpaste and then stacking that up layer by layer to create the shape of the part you want but these printers will do that that line to a much smaller degree very fine and computer controlled and it'll melt and extrude plastics that we can create intricate shapes like these which are still also very thin as you can see thin walls so once you have your 3d model the that 3d model can be transferred to the 3d printer and it replicates that with extruded plastic or other materials as for your material question these two printers here use abs which is um one of the materials that we do use this one we mainly use pla but since it's also more so of an open source printer you can use other materials that are out there on the market such as petg or pla with different infused materials such as wood or copper or iron even so that way you can have some of the properties of those materials and then this printer the modics like i mentioned at first also can use a variety of materials and one of the cool materials that we've gotten in our in the process of testing would be this one here from one of our partners that we're working with to create a more circular economy when it comes to 3d printing this is from closed loop to plastics and this material is actually made from red solo cups so they would recycle red solo cups and make it into 3d printer filament that way we can use this for our prototyping needs it's a mod x also an fdm also sorry sorry oh no thank you for making sure i clarified that yeah the mautic is also an fdm printer yeah and the red solo cups are high impact polystyrene just from the peanut gallery then just finishing up the room we have the industrial level sewing machines here that you can use if you're making you know to support the fashion district in the downtown el area as well as to for anyone that has wearable tech or fabrics that would be included in their prototype and then the large format printer that i mentioned before um it's essentially a very large household printer but it can do a variety of materials as well as cutting out the um the shapes of that print so that way if you need to make stickers banners decals for your prototype all of those types of things can be printed on this printer i think that would be about it for this room unless there are any questions of course isn't it it's a sublimation printer or is it an inkjet printer it'd okay and the materials are basically i saw there were rolls back there is that just paper or are there other materials back there um in terms of the material options we have um there would be regular printer a couple of vinyl adhesives matte glossy glossy poster and satin canvas wow thank you of course no problem and one thing to add is that we we do uh provide services uh on request as well so if someone wants to have a print that that possibly can't be done at the octavia lab we're able to support some of that work as well just uh is that a whiteboard table i spy uh yes over here this entire table is actually the grid that's on there is a whiteboard material and it's also one giant sticker that was printed on the large format printer that we mentioned before so it has like multiple uses whiteboard a grid for measuring your fabric when you're using the sewing machine and then also showcases the the capability and the size capacity of that printer that we have cool thank you seriously if anybody in the audience has questions please this is a lot of fun thank you so much for taking the time yeah when soon we'll have the 3d scanner in there it's over in the computer lab now but laura's had some fun with it yesterday we we do have a high definition 3d scanner how big does it scan or what can i put me in it or eight inch eight inch diameter at this point um but we're going to expand that we wanted to get the the software you know consistent and set up and tested and we're going to expand the size from that so now we're in the machine shop this is where this is a really unique room it's intended for multiple industrial processes in here and the way we've set it up is very modularly so we can adapt to projects that we have because sometimes we have larger projects and we need to move things around so things are on wheels things are are pallet jackable and rearrangeable in the space we have companies that often will donate equipment to us or we'll bring in specific equipment in order to accomplish a certain job so we work together with uh different companies and we um you know we're also fortunate to have a funding from the eda and from ledwp and lacey essentially manages this space for the department of water and power so we are very fortunate to have access to this space and and to be able to manage it and and enable access for our startup companies as well for the community um pretty soon we're going to introduce sharon here she's from our workforce development uh group and we we are very excited to talk with her as well about how we're integrating the uh the fellowship programs and educational side of the industrial processes that we have so you can see some of the face shields here that we worked on um with v these are actually the uh die cut versions where we we wanted to save the time in 3d printing we were very um we had a lot of challenges with material uh during the pandemic we had scarcities across the board and we wanted to do consistent improvement in the products themselves so you can see two different facials there one of them is like a rev revision number four and that one that he's holding now is a provision number seven uh we went through lots of process improvement throughout we even wanted to eliminate the small dots that were getting punched out and so we had less small pieces of plastic so but we ended up in total delivering over 125 000 face shields to local hospitals and uh we actually still have quite quite a bit um here we also um were able to support the employment of over 230 at-risk youth during the the time through the youth at work program with l.a county uh workforce development agent and community services that's correct so we we're very fortunate to have partnered with lapl and octavia lab because that what you're seeing is is a result of our collaboration um and hard work um so i wanted to say you know thank you v for working so hard with us and and uh everyone at the octavia lab and lsdl um and a big shout out to the shipping department of the los angeles public library we're deeply deeply grateful for their work we are we are very grateful for for all of you and uh all the hard work and time that was spent so what you're looking at in front of you here behind that curtain is a very powerful machine that is a cnc water jet cutter uses 60 000 psi to cut through any material you want basically you've probably seen if you've ever seen water jet cutting on on youtube you can see people cutting through bowling balls you can see uh through very you know very precise work um you can actually cut steel with this uh and you have a four foot by eight foot area to draw anything in on in cad and then program the water jet to cut it out um so this machine works similarly more to so first of all cnc stands for com what computer numerical control okay and when you are cutting something with a water jet in this way does it only cut like a drawing like a straight line or can it do shapes also like like can it actually make a bowling ball or can i only cut things in half well actually what you're seeing is a perfect answer to that uh this is text this is a sign that was made uh out of eighth inch aluminum and it's it's very precise um text in there so essentially any drawing if you can use a laser cutter if you can draw a two-dimensional cad drawing uh that's what we need we need a drawing exchange file and it will in it'll come into the computer and we program it based on the material we're trying to cut and we set up that material properly so it will stay in the machine and the we orient the machine in the right location so that we can save material and also get the best results so during the pandemic we actually cut stacks of 10 sheets at a time when we were cutting the facial um go ahead cad drawings what software are you using for those of us uh uh we are using um autodesk fusion 360. we use vectric 3d aspire software also solidworks we're sponsored by autodesk we have that available to our community as well and we help to send you know get get startup companies engaged with having free set cad software for a year from autodesk um and and uh we often use fusion 360 for 3d modeling and tv programming cool yeah fusion 360 is free for hobbyist users and then you guys are at home thinking about picking up uh learning a cad software all you need is an email account can you remember to sign yourself up thank you vee you guys what you also see in here is a mix of different complementary equipment so if you're going to you cut plastic sheets or metal sheets you need a shear that's what you're looking at in front of you there it's uh what is this thing that is actually quite new that's probably a year old yes no because it looks like something that probably was designed years ago yeah yeah they they make these uh shears they've been making them for years and now they have conversions so that you they use much less power so with 120 psi in an airline they can convert that power into hydraulic power and we can cut 12 gauge steel which is almost an eighth of an inch thick and so our goal not only is to enable the process but to make it better and to use less power doing it um and then you can see also in the distance behind that is a sheet metal bender which we've also bent uh polycarbonate plastic with we can it's a box can break so we can we can fold material uh into different shapes and sometimes i like to say you can make origami with this if you do it right at least up to 12 gauge as well so we want to set that really as our sheet metal working threshold and then just beyond that you can see a haas mini mill that's another cnc machine with very high precision um and it's great for prototyping because it's not huge but it will will enable you to do very precise cuts uh repeatedly you can see some of florence's work in there now and we use often use fusion 360 for that there's a our blank for the key to the city it's one of the things that we're honored to work on over here and it demonstrates the the precision if you look at look at city hall on on look at that that detail in three dimensions i mean that's that's really uh unique you can see mayor eric garcetti written on there and i'm a blank or that's a mold this is just a test this is our program test for the the la city side and uh the what the other side of this specific design was given to the stan lee foundation uh in honor of his contribution to los angeles uh it had his face engraved in 3d it was a beautiful beautiful piece uh it was a great community effort so that's the that's the haas on the right hand side from lawrence is also a a lathe a cnc lathe you can turn round materials and make um threaded pieces just like that and then we also have another mill behind him there is more uh a conventional type mill but it also has cnc programming capabilities we have a nice drill press so the lace sorry a lathe is specifically to mill round objects and a mill is basically to carve out flat objects or can it also do ground objects uh you can also do round objects the the lathe is more appropriate for material that's rounded that you're going to be turning so you can stick a pipe in there and cut it to a certain size or mill different contours inside of it just like he showed you can actually make a screw so it'd be much more difficult to make a threaded part on a mill than it would be to to spin it at a certain speed and have a cutting tool cut in the threads so that's basically what this does is it it cuts the threads along the contour of the uh of the part and if i might add i feel like a good description for a lathe for those that aren't familiar it's very similar to a pottery wheel except you'd be using it for harder materials and having a computer or or manually controlling tools to carve into it okay thanks one of our newest additions that we're really excited about is a cnc router so we are moving also into this machine isn't as much for metal as it is for wood and plastic and other softer materials you can do aluminum on this but there here's a new uh addition to the shop here where you can put a four foot by eight foot she material on it and program it to to cut all types of shapes i would love to do a topographical map of the city on here there's there's going to be some fun projects coming out of this fantastic all right what's the difference between a cnc male and a cnc router ah great so the the two things that that make the difference a mill is intended for harder materials cnc mill specifically is able to hold a very tight tolerance on hard materials that means it needs to be very rigid it needs to be also able to flood with coolant so you can keep the materials and the putters cool um during the process so it was um there's a very very rigid system around that and there's little more give on the cnc router where it is it doesn't handle as much what we call deflection so something pushing against the bit and it um not being able or it flexing as it pushes back right so what the router does it's more intended for wood sheet materials so you can put a big sheet of material and you can cut shapes you see if you look up cnc router furniture you can see lots of different furniture that's made from cc routers and it is based on a sheet material so it'll cut out a profile and then or it'll engrave in 3d into the material typically it won't use coolant and you'll use a vacuum to remove any of the chips or dust okay so both of these technologies the mill and the router primarily does things on an xy axis xy and like pretty much it's a flat drawing and it drills down or can it do or can it do different angles or um it is a cartesian system it's three axis so you have xyz and uh it is programmable in three dimensions so it won't cut something underneath an object but you can cut varying uh very precise levels in three dimensions so you could uh like you saw in the with the city with the city the key to the city that's a three-dimensional uh cut the router can do the same thing the mill is the same way but it won't turn the head to cut at an angle itself you need a bit that's straight up and down vertically all right i'm gonna ask one dumb question left okay all right so these are cnc so how do i feed an instruction to it if it's through a usb do i bring a computer over how does that work uh this would be something that we would run for you right if you're not in our workforce development program that we're gonna ask sharon to speak on a little bit then um then we would basically uh run it for you you send us your files we'll send you back a a quote for running a job and then uh you if you can supply the material we schedule it and we take care of it and you can be a part of that as well we can do a live feed video because we're essentially we're close to the public right now but we are providing those services cool thank you not a dumb question not a dumb question by the way thank you uh so if you take a look to your left also we'll can continue panning around um what you didn't see is the the chop saw and the table saw but we have saws for metal cutting here as well as a um some of our one of our prototypes from bmw this is a scooter micro mobility uh scooter here where we are working on uh workforce development programs and uh we're we will soon have a cohort actually to teach people how to do uh professional maintenance on these uh types of equipment so um i wanted to ping sharon to see if sharon is on the line maybe she can talk about some of the cohorts coming up thanks so much nick hi can you guys hear me okay hi sharon hi so yeah thank you that was actually a perfect segue um so yeah i'd love to talk to you guys about one of our workforce development training programs coming up so as nick had mentioned um something that's coming up around february is when we're going to launch the program we're actually going to launch the applications to apply next week but in for about like four to six weeks certain participants who go through our program will learn how to do the maintenance and repair of micro mobility slash e-mobility devices such as e-scooters and e-bikes so participants who go through our training receive technical training as well as interpersonal skills so let's say you learn all these technical skills but you want to find a job within clean technology or within the sustainable workplace you want to be prepared with your resume and interview skills so we have a career coach who works with our participants to help them get ready for that stage in addition to that we also provide participants with opportunities to work with some of the startups who are building things within that makerspace or of some of our partners who are looking for a potential internship or sorry potential interns or potential participants to get hired thank you sharon when does that start again yeah so the applications will launch next week um if anyone is interested i highly recommend shooting an email at workforce lacey.org

the actual training will start in february you also are going to have the micro grid training and ed technician training coming up yeah so the micro grid training that will begin in march and then the evsc network technician training will start sometime in uh fall of this year um so yeah for more details definitely shoot me an email i have a question what is a microgrid and what is ev the other vocabulary where you use also yeah no feel free to try midnight because i feel like you may have a little bit more expertise on what an actual micro grid is but that is the participants who go through our training will learn about the battery and storage of like uh solar energy of battery energy and stuff like that um anything going to add to that nick yeah a micro grid is basically a smaller version of the of a power plant it takes the power that comes from the utility breaks it down into the different uh service needs of the place where it is so if it's a residential area you know often you'll see a dwp building that you don't really see too many people at but there's a bunch of hardware in in the back and and lights that are going on and off that's essentially a substation uh so from the substation then it goes down into a microgrid where you have uh power that's actually coming from our solar panel solar panels in the parking lot into this this small management facility for less power that that supplies the the needs of that building so there is a lot of that coming up there's a lot of that being built infrastructure wise for in in the nation really but in los angeles that's our focus so we're going to need people to do that and those are jobs that are being created so we want and so what sharon's talking about is um the process for you for people in on this call or on you know in the ecosystem or in los angeles anywhere that want to learn how to uh work on that equipment and need jobs and want to be in the clean tech uh green economy and what was the other one that started with evg or evd i'm sorry i didn't catch that oh no worries yeah so the other one is for uh ev network tech or evsc network technicians so pretty much uh we're hosting a training program which will teach participants how to do the maintenance troubleshooting and repair of the actual ev chargers um so yeah all right so the things we see tesla's park into that thing exactly yeah just making sure okay yeah there's so much talk about you know electric vehicles and we're we're part of the transportation electrification partnership it's really important for us to to see those those changes but in in order for those changes to take place then then we need workers that are trained to to support that infrastructure we need people investing in startups that are that are that are putting the infrastructure out there meaning the chargers are going out on the street and they need people to fix them and work on them and there needs to be a place where people can learn and then get and train and get those jobs and certifications so that's what we're enabling here as well and these trainings are free i mean like six months training and you get to be joining a amazing amazing new technology exactly yeah the training will be completely free the only requirements are 18 and up la county resident and your i guess interest in clean technology and sustainability sign me up all right so is there um anything else that uh you'd like to see here the laser cutter presentation oh the laser cutter okay all right so uh we let's head to the laser room and we have two epilogue laser cutters uh that we were actually currently working on as well to make some improvements and do some maintenance uh so we have a helix and a fusion and both are connected to fume extractors there's my reminder i love seeing the new grate in there that's awesome when we were cutting all that um that pet for the face shields it really did a number on all the uh the parts inside the laser so we're now doing the maintenance on those and it works very similarly to the waterjet cutter takes this same kind of file in fact even more types of files you can you can laser cut from [Music] images and pdfs and you don't need to do the same type of cad drawing necessarily but the the versatility is there and this is something that's really great to uh to have in a maker space and to know how to use because this is a this is an industry standard now uh that a lot of products can be developed on and tested and you know we we we do a lot of cross um cross collaboration i guess you could say on equipment so with if if one product uh one part is ideal to make on this laser cutter then we can use that for that that part we can also use a waterjet cutter to use it we can we can test what what is best to use and this is a very versatile machine that is very helpful to have in the labs and we also train people on using this and enable access when we do open up this will be on our on our public uh self-directed list for uh people to come in and use so earlier you talked about how you did modifications to the motor into the engine to make it more energy efficient do you do that too is that something you consider for all your machines or is it something that it's just something you think about like you switched one foot to a hydraulic um oh um the uh the the shear actually came like that that was trying to manufacture with those modifications so we want to be careful about how much we actually modify on a machine but every every machine has when you use it you learn about it and you see where improvements can be made and you know that's that's what's important is that you you don't just read the manual and and and understand it from there you you actually um read the manual and then you use it and you learn how the machine operates and the little nuances that each one has and getting that experience is really helpful that's why it's it's so important to have that hands-on aspect when you're when you're uh learning you know students come to us and have internships we have volunteers we we want to open the learning opportunities and that creates more opportunities in the workforce as well there's our new table saw saw stop table saw that is [Music] very sensitive so that if your finger gets close to it or touches the blade the blade retracts in less than a second so that it minimizes any risk of injury and then behind you there is the clicker press the famous clicker press that we made many many face shields on this was a definitely a win for us and the community that we provided face shields to because the the material was cleaner the production was faster and it was the right decision to make in the process improvement to making the most facials for the least cost amount of waste so our next steps are in recycling so if you look to your left over here there's blue containers these blue containers are actually full of the waste from the ppe efforts and what we are working with now is some of our partners in the community and department of water and power to develop systems so that we can actually recycle this material and put it back into either into the manufacturing manufacturing ecosystem or develop products that are beneficial so we're really excited about the future of that along with working with closed loop plastics to make more 3d printer filament uh this that's a strong focus for us in the circular economy efforts of the prototyping center can you explain the phrase circular economy please oh of course well when you when you have a material that gets used one time it's not circular it's not going back into the ecosystem to be used for its original purpose again or to be used for something else so in the methods of recycling you have reduce reuse and recycle right you know basically we want to put it back into the ecosystem keep it out of landfills it's waste diversion so that's our focus is basically to develop you know small processes to pilot that um those efforts to demonstrate and teach people about recycling and what does it really look like what does it take um and and keep the culture moving forward being more of being better stewards and of more sustainable practices in manufacturing and also open the doors you know to um to new innovation we have uh startup companies like bree wilder that are making they're using the uh the waste from the auto manufacturing industry that that dumps tons of of fabrics and materials and and uh they're repurposing and they're making bags and now they have products from from airbags and seat belts you know and and that's what we want to focus on is where are we wasting and what can we do with that to be responsible so plastic so finding methods of using plastics or using cloth any kind of what would be considered landfill ways to becoming a value added or i don't know the right language but cool are there any questions from the audience please put them in the chat so what are some coolest projects we've actually done in the apc i mean of course i love that question uh so one of the great uh successes that we've had we've we built uh many of the parts that assembled the first prototype for a company called ampere it was a hybrid electric airplane that is now seeing great success uh they they now have a hangar in in hawthorne next to spacex they are making planes that are flying from island to island and that's one of the strong cases that we've had in here we also have worked with multiple startups to help them help them with their with their hardware development so um there's companies that are making evs right now that needed specific brackets and specific things welded and we can basically address those uh those concerns and and take in the request easy as in electric vehicles right yes okay cool and other other projects of um the the key to the city is also a big one for us and and that's really it takes a community it demonstrates the community uh of resources as well you know we use um the wood from you know fallen trees locally sourced uh we're also you know interested in repurposing supplies that go back into things that we build so i would i would think the ppe project is probably our biggest lift uh within the past couple of years um but that's a a coalition essentially that was built um during the pandemic in you know a very strongly presented mood and it really helped a lot of people uh so we're we're uh you know honored to be a part of that so for those i'm sorry lord oh no i'm sorry i was just going to add another company that probably utilized the entire advanced prototyping center the best or or the most fully at least was um on robot and their technology utilized the chemistry lab the electronics lab and the machine shop because they would make things like gecko grippers for they would make essentially uh gecko gripping hands for the end of robotic arms so they'd use the chemistry lab to be able to make the gecko breaker gecko gripper adhesive-like material the electronics lab to be able to control the robot arm then the machine shop to make this more structural components of all of that so just wanted to throw them in there as a one of the companies that have really utilized the space cool so so in order to use the space you need an engineering background or like how did you get started in prototyping or learning these technologies nick ward either of you oh laura let's go ahead uh for me i feel like my interest in prototyping and technological spaces started when i was pretty little um i can remember maybe my dad gave me like an old radio and he said here just go ahead you know give me a couple screwdrivers and a hammer to take it apart then when i broke it apart it's like oh i saw this little circuit board you know me a little kid i'm eight years old like oh the circuit board looks like a miniature city and i just found it entirely fascinating um and then from there you know just seeing all the technological advances i figured um engineering is something that i would be interested in so i ended up pursuing a degree in that and then as i moved to la and learned about this space as like this is perfect i just want to you know be able to brainstorm ideas with people who are trying to create new things and then a huge plus is being able to make an impact so working in a space that's targeted towards creating a greener environment technologically and just to make the planet a better place this was the spot for me awesome lawrence andy's a mechanical engineer from colombia she doesn't really talk too much about that but he's a phenomenal creator um and and from my background i grew up in prototyping and in shops my father was a disney imagineer and worked in aerospace so i grew up in shops and with the you know we would as as a kid i would go around and and with him and and take all of the different plastic parts that we had used up in the house and then turn it into a fantasy spaceship and then we would have i i would submit them to the model contests that he had with some of his uh friends at lockheed and then i started working for the fire department as a technician for the communications group and had the opportunity to be in the machine shop and ended up spending 13 years learning from very very amazing people in each different process of welding and cnc manufacturing and learning how to put each one together to make a finished product what's the best way to do this most efficiently and and uh i that's really where i developed the love for the city uh in understanding like wow these these things that i'm making are helping people i'm i'm i'm more interested to to help people learn how to make these things and to be able to solve a problem quickly efficiently and let the vehicle get back on the road to go save people that was really what the core of my interest was so uh you know spending time learning from experts in each different field and then getting that practice immediately and going you know for uh you know for 13 years saying okay let's build this lab and let's make it successful and now that now the city has that they they use that lab to help support the communications and the fire and police departments and the general services i ended up getting to build things all over the city in city hall and mountaintops and police cars and fire trucks and then i said you know i really want to do more to benefit the city and what the beautiful thing with that that lacy has is that um ability to be nimble to to enable people that have an interest to learn that wouldn't really have access to that those resources we can enable those that access we can help start up companies we can help education and really be a great benefit to the city uh so in any way we can do that that's that's our our interest i thank you so much for sharing your stories nick and words and thank you sharon also um i'm gonna put this back to diane and she's gonna close out the show thank you so much everybody this has been amazing wow that was pretty amazing nick lawrence v thank you so much um i mean it's just amazing i want to put solar panels in my house my driveway on top of the library let's make it happen b we can do this with nick and lauren's help um so if you want to check this out later this will be on our youtube channel channel under our maker talk playlist so you can keep watching this and which is great and i hope a lot of you will try to um apply to the makerforcelacie.org and we put that in the chat there it is right there on the screen it's pretty exciting stuff we want to help make our city better so i hope some people will apply and the next maker talk i believe it'll be in our online calendar which is lapl.org forward slash events and it'll be next month and i believe it's february 9th at 1 o'clock and in case there's any changes you just keep checking our online calendar and it'll be with marlboro school the robotics program so um thanks to v for helping organize that so remember if you'd like to be one of our makers please shoot us an email at uh l e and c e c d e p t at l apl.org [Music] and let's try to make 2022 pretty exciting and i also like to invite you all to be part of the globe cloud challenge and you can check out that uh we just had a program yesterday so check out our youtube page it's fascinating information and it's a great partnership with nassau so help make our world a better place everybody and have an amazing weekend and check out all our other programs thanks and we'll see you next time

2022-01-17 23:12

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